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The houses were going to be built at Grove Farm, on the corner of Harlton Road and Church Street in Haslingfield.

But the site is inside the Green Belt, land where housing development is normally forbidden.

Church Street, Haslingfield (Google image)

A spokesman for the district council said the scheme had actually been turned down, but the decision to refuse the application was "incorrectly entered as an approval into a computer system which generates a letter for the applicant."

The spokesman said: "This process has already been changed and additional checks put in place to try and make sure the problem does not happen again.

"Once the error was spotted the council spoke to the applicant and have now filed legal papers with the High Court.

"The application to the court has been made by Cllr Nick Wright, the council’s deputy leader."

The spokesman said it was expected the planning approval would be rescinded within six to eight weeks.

Cllr Robert Turner - 'We got it wrong'

Cllr Robert Turner, the cabinet member for planning, said: “We completely hold our hands up – we have made a human error in this case. We process around 2,500 planning applications a year and we make every effort to avoid errors of this sort.

"We got it wrong in this case and reviewed what happened. We have apologised to the applicant and are making changes to our processes to try and make sure it does not happen again.”

The spokesman said officers were "very confident the legal process to remove the planning permission will be quickly resolved, especially as the homes are in the green belt."